


If I Had A Heart

by thechaoscryptid



Series: Bad Things Happen Bingo Fills [16]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Dark Fantasy, Fratricide, Necromancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-21
Updated: 2020-05-21
Packaged: 2021-03-02 21:08:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,411
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24303448
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thechaoscryptid/pseuds/thechaoscryptid
Summary: One can ease out secrets from rot if only they have the patience, the dedication, but few are willing to pay the price for mishandling the dead.Fewer still are willing to sell themselves in return for a corpse’s voice.
Series: Bad Things Happen Bingo Fills [16]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1391602
Comments: 2
Kudos: 5





	If I Had A Heart

**Author's Note:**

> Hiiiii welcome to a short test of some original characters I've got going who'll potentially end up in a novel in the future! Written for the BTHB prompt exclusion/rejection. Definitely realized halfway through Cyra's basically Orochimaru and I'm not mad about it. Title stolen from Fever Ray's If I Had A Heart.

Anyone who says the dead do not speak is a fool. A corpse, in the hands of someone who understands its value, is more precious than the rarest gem. There is history in every scar, every scrap of rotting clothing, every bone when the rest has faded away into dust. One can ease out secrets from the rot if only they have the patience, the dedication, but few are willing to pay the price for mishandling the dead.

Fewer still are willing to sell themselves in return for a corpse’s voice.

Branches snap in the fire that burns between my brother and I, Alenna’s broken body laid to the side as I lean back in my seat. Kanden’s eyes track my fingers as they brush idly against the dirt, his jaw set firm and arms crossed in defense. The moon above hangs low, dipping into the trees to cast silver and shadow across his wife’s sightless eyes.

“Stop,” he says. “Draw your runes and I won’t hesitate to dig another grave.”

“I wasn’t drawing,” I say, narrowing my eyes. “Is that how little you think of me?”

It has to be, because he hisses through his teeth, looks into the fire’s glow and curls his lip in a sneer. “I think you’d do just about anything to get your hands on her father’s secrets.”

“Secrets?” I simper. “Kan, you know the dead tell no tales.”

“Bullshit.”

“Is it?” I pick up a stick and poke at the glowing embers, their angry popping sending sparks flying into the cool night air. They dance merrily on their way back down before flickering out. “Did you not lecture me once on how pointless it was to follow where the spirits led me? That it was a dark path, ending only in futility?”

“Don’t you _dare_ turn this around on me,” Kanden says. “I know what you can do. I’ve _seen_ it, Cyra, I’ve heard the dead’s voices just as clear as I can hear yours now. Her wounds came from an animal, sure, but it wasn’t any of those that roam the forests.”

I poke again, meeting his gaze through the glow. “Funny, I thought Da didn’t raise a coward,” I say. “Speak clearly, brother, or I might miss your true point.”

Sniffing, he shakes his head and looks to the ground. His grief is nothing new to me--he’s always felt things too deeply, much too potently for the life we lead. Those who manipulate prettier forces than I always do, but their magic is less than useless against those who seek to snuff our kind out for eternity.

I’ve found that the dead tell no tales, all right, but better, they tell no lies. There’s no _conscience_ left to hinder progress.

It’s why they make better companions than the living.

“If you’re so offended you can’t even look at me, you should’ve killed me long ago,” I continue. “Killed me or left me, but you haven’t, because you know I’m the one who will bring the anti-magic laws to an end, and you can’t bear the thought of being without your power for the rest of your life, can you?”

Kanden remains silent.

“Can you?” I demand.

“You’re a cunt, anyone ever told you that?” he spits.

“More than once.” I purse my lips, arching my back as I stretch from side to side. “Do you know where that got them?”

_Killed,_ but he can’t bring himself to say it, and he scoffs as he turns away. He hunches over himself, shoulders drawn tight and hood tucked around his neck as though that will somehow stop any harm that’s coming to him. For certain, he understands the stakes.

He’s just unwilling to see why a minister’s daughter, no matter how close, can be used to manipulate him.

Alenna grows colder by the minute, the blood on her skin beginning to crack and flake away with the wind. Perhaps we should clean her--she _was_ family, after all, if I can count the woman who stole Kan’s sense _family._ She was kind and good and deserves more, truly, but in life, she was a fool. Kanden does not see as I do, refuses to piece together that every misstep, every mistake was chronicled to her father, who in turn used that information to round up more of our kin.

Perhaps in death, she will spill _his_ secrets instead.

I trail my stick in the dirt once again, wiping away one doodle before moving on to the next. I wait until the cold becomes too much for Kanden and he turns back to me, face downcast and tears on his cheeks. It hurts him, I know, but one day he will understand that to change the world, one needs to be willing to give up everything.

“Get on with it,” he mutters. “I’ll prepare a grave.”

“You don’t want one last chance to say goodbye?”

Kanden kicks the ground as he stands, eyes venomous. “Whatever’s coming back is no longer my wife. There’s a reason you lot have gone nearly extinct, but...”

“But you need me,” I say coolly, “and so you _allow_ me to remain here, is that it?”

“Mn.”

I rise, hand on my dagger as an owl hoots nearby. “Go, then,” I say. “Any last words?”

“Tell her that I’m sorry.” Kanden steps away, pauses, and glances back over his shoulder. “And I hope she rests well after you’re done violating her.”

“Kan,” I begin, voice softening. He is unwilling to see that it’s not violation, bringing a soul back. It is an act of reverence, a final tribute to all that a person was in their life. It is a second chance.

It is _beautiful._

_“_ When’t it going to end?” he interrupts. “If we somehow manage to convince them that it’s not worth the segregation and the judgement, will that be enough for you? Or do you need the world to worship you, too?”

“That’s not why I’m doing this,” I say. “Have you forgotten the way they turned on you, too? Summoning the wind to blow the clouds from their parties, oh, _how_ could you be so _vile,_ Kanden Erus?” I sidestep the fire and bring the dagger to his throat, tipping his quivering chin up as I snarl. “This is not just my fight.”

“Some of us aren’t willing to sell ourselves to the darkness to bring back the light,” Kanden whispers. “Manipulating earthly forces is not the same as unearthly puppetry and you know it, but we cannot have one without the other. You wouldn’t fucking rest until it was so, anyway.”

My spine chills, and I stiffen with a sniff. “I won’t rest because it’s the right thing to do,” I say, low and dark as the blade presses harder. He’s never like this, never so _forward_ in his anger. “Can you not see the forest past the trees?”

“If you had a heart, you’d care about the twice-damned trees,” he says. “You’d care about something other than your selfishness.”

“Selfish?” 

“Selfish,” he says, trailing off in a whine at the sensation of a single crimson drop trailing down his neck. He slumps, fight wrung out of him. “Come on, Cyra, take care of your problem the way you always do.” 

The blade presses deeper as he leans forward, and I stand firm.

“You’ve woven your web, spider...” 

_So this is how it ends, after all these years, Kanden?_

_“_ Made your bed...” He brings a hand to my shoulder, its weight that of the entire world as he coughs in my face. “Put me to rest,” he rasps. “Maybe killing what’s left of the good in your life will sate y--”

My brother dies in the same way he came into this world--bloodied and breathless, cradled in the arms of someone who wanted _everything_ for him. No tears fall from my eyes, no heaving sobs rip from my chest as I lay his body out. 

If I had a heart, I’d care that everything I once loved is gone, and if I had a heart, perhaps I would grieve.

If I had a heart, perhaps my brother would not be collateral damage of my pursuit for justice.

If I had a heart, then maybe, just maybe, I would let him rest with Alenna.

_If._

But my heart is no longer, what I have loved is gone, and there is only one way to go.

Forward.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Comments always read and _very_ much appreciated, and I always do my best to get back to them ❤️
> 
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